How to Generate Leads through Social Media

March 21, 2017

Do you own a small business and wonder which social channels are the best way to generate leads through social media?

Do you have questions about how much money to spend on website design, which channels you should focus on and how email marketing can help grow your business?

This week on the Social Media Social Hour, Rich Brooks and I discuss social media marketing for small businesses, taking a look at what the top priorities should be with limited time and resources, and how to best utilize various means of social media.

Let’s do this!

About the show:

The Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, accounts management, and productivity. The Social Media Social Hour is presented by Tack – Power your marketing with authentic content from customers and fans.

In this episode, here is what you’ll discover:

About Rich Brooks:

Rich is the Founder & President of flyte new media, a web design, and internet marketing company in Portland, Maine.  He founded the annual conference and podcast, Agents of Change, that focus on search, social mobile and more. Rich is the author of Lead Machine, the Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing that helps entrepreneurs and marketers reach their ideal audience online and is a nationally recognized speaker on entrepreneurship, digital marketing, & social media. His work has been featured on Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, Huffington Post, CNN.com and the Social Media Examiner. 

Mentionable Quotes by Rich Brooks:

  • The Crux of the Book:  “Build, attract, retain & evaluate – and that became the bare essentials of digital marketing”

    • Build – How to build a website that converts
    • Attract – driving traffic via search social ads
    • Retain – how do you stay in touch with people after they’re left your site
    • Evaluate – how to measure that data
  • About His Book: “It’s the bare essentials of social marketing, laying it out and showing examples on how it works. You can just pull out the chapters that pertain to you.”

  • “The idea that the same lessons won’t work for everybody, I haven’t found that to be true. After doing this for 20 years and for hundreds of clients, I’ve realized that there is a framework that will help you make sense of your digital marketing.”

  • On What Excites Him the Most:  “Agents of Change Conference. I love bringing people together. I love to build community.”

  • On Writing the Book: “I love to create content. . . putting something together that was  a little bit more coherent and planned out [than the blog] and help someone map out their own digital strategy.”
  • Advice for those who are just getting started:  “If you’re just getting started, you need to have a website. It does need to be mobile friendly (response web design & needs to be on a content management system like WordPress). The second most important thing is getting an opt-in list of emails.
  • On websites:  You don’t need to spend a lot of money. Make it clean, easy to use and mobile friendly. Spend money on good photography and excellent copywriting.
  • “There is no ‘one size fits all.'”
  • On email Lists: “The days of “join my email list” are long gone. Multiple approaches. If you’re just getting started, do a free giveaway that seems like it has a lot of value to your ideal customer and is scalable.”
  • “Know what your #1 customer wants.”
  • “The pop-up windows aren’t getting as much traction anymore – less effective.”
  • “Do a few things and then measure them.”
  • “Build trust by providing valuable content and establish yourself as a thought-leader and a resource.”
  • “A good mix of content is important.”
  • On Blogging:I do love blogging because I’m an SEO guy at heart. A good blog post drives traffic every month and that is a great investment of my time.”
  • On Podcasting: “Podcasting is having a renaissance. I enjoy it. It works on so many levels. Selfishly it’s great to get information on a topic you want to know for free. It’s a great connector and a great way to stay up-to-date and to create content.”
  • On Facebook Marketing: “A few businesses are still succeeding without money but it’s very rare. I don’t see the value of updating the Facebook page on a consistent basis.”
  • On Twitter:  I love Twitter, Twitter is my favorite. If Facebook died tomorrow I would not mind at all but if Twitter died I would really be upset about it. But at the same time, I’d probably skip it for small business. I love the platform but I can’t make the argument that Twitter is so important anymore. You need to make sure your audience is there.”
  • Brian Eisenberg Quote:  “Never forget that social is for reach but email is for revenue.” 
  • More on Email Marketing: “There is always going to be an opportunity to grow via email.  That is the digital backbone of your online presence.” 

Items/people mentioned in the show:

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